Midnight Conversation
by tookyourmatches
Summary: A late-night visit between Jenny and Jethro turns into a conversation about how things used to be.


Disclaimer: My student loans are telling me I definitely don't own NCIS.

This was the complete opposite of what I originally intended it to be, but it took a life of its own and I couldn't stop it. Angst warning.

_Some lines taken from Lost and Found, Judgment Day, and Family Secret. Takes place a few days after Kill Ari part 2._

Leroy Jethro Gibbs had a nightly routine: upon returning to his house after work, he would change into something more comfortable and spend the evening in his basement with his current boat project and a Mason jar of bourbon. It was a routine he had been following for years and he had no thought of really changing it.

He was following this routine one evening, sanding one of the sides of his boat when he heard a noise come from somewhere upstairs. He paused for a moment, then shrugged it off and went back to work. Less than two minutes later, he heard it again, this time louder than before. Curious now, he sat the sander down and started to make his way up the stairs to the main floor of his house. His curiosity about the sounds died when he noticed the source of the noise, walking in his direction.

"Jen, what are you doing?"

The redheaded woman, Jennifer Shepard, glared at him. "Trying to get to your basement, Jethro. What does it look like I'm doing?"

"Well, do you need to make so much noise to announce your presence?"

That comment was awarded with a second glare. "Your damn floorboard tripped me."

"Twice?" She gave him a look and his eyes looked down, noticing the real reason she had tripped: too-high heels. He rolled his eyes and tilted his head in a gesture for her to follow him.

He made his way down the basement stairs faster than she did. By the time she reached the bottom he already had a second jar of bourbon waiting for her. He handed it to her and she smiled in silent appreciation before taking a sip.

"So… what're you here for?"

"Can't someone just visit her old partner and chat?"

He eyed her suspiciously, raising an eyebrow. "Jen."

"Jethro."

Green met blue as they both raised their jars to their lips at the same time. Jenny sighed, setting her jar down on the worktable. "I just wanted to tell you that I'm glad you followed your gut with Ari. Instead of listening to me."

He picked his sander back up. "Always do, Jen," he said. "But that's not the reason you came."

"Oh?" Jethro didn't look up from his sanding. She took another drink of her bourbon. "Up in MTAC, you said the past wouldn't be a problem."

Jethro grunted in agreement. He heard the click of her heels as she moved, as if she couldn't decide on a place to be or a position to be in. Annoyed, he looked up to reprimand her for making the sounds but found himself distracted by how her hair fell in light curls, now free from the restraint of the elastic they had been in previously. He had always loved her hair like that, even as far back in Jenny's days as a probie.

Currently, the locks of red hair fell against a light pink long-sleeved blouse, which somehow managed to make her eyes a more vibrant shade of green, and therefore more attractive overall… if that was possible.

Her voice snapped him back to reality. "Do you ever think about it? Paris?"

Jethro tried to block out the images that instantly flooded his mind: a dark, cramped attic in Marseilles; walking along a Parisian street; a Christmas Day snowball fight which ended with them in bed, using their own means of getting warm; and an envelope placed on a pillow, with his name scrawled on the front in perfect script.

He swallowed. "No. No, I don't." He resumed his sanding after taking a gulp of bourbon.

"I do." Jethro paused, then resumed his work. "I think about what could have happened," she said slowly, "if what did happen, didn't." When she received silence in response, she stepped closer to him.

"What happened?" she asked softly, in almost a whisper.

Jethro looked back at her. "You made a choice, Jen," he answered coldly.

"I had to do what was best for me, Jethro. I still do."

"Then there isn't anything to think about, is there, _Director_?" He nearly spat her title at her. She flinched at the ice cold stare she received but didn't move and remained silent, lips pursed together and trying to think of a response. "You made your choice. And now you have to deal with the consequences."

"I've been dealing with the _consequences_ for six years," Jenny said, looking Jethro in the eye. "And six years is a long time to think."

He broke their gaze, tossing the sander on the floor and drinking from his jar. "You made your bed, Jen."

"What if I don't want to sleep in it?"

Jethro didn't respond. "I know how you feel about apologies, so apologizing would be pointless," Jenny admitted, looking down. "But you wrote yourself into my life, you weren't part of what I planned, and it threw me off." She sighed. "And it scared me. I couldn't, wouldn't, write you out, so I wrote you the letter and took the easy way out. I thought it would be easier on both of us."

She laughed haughtily at herself, shaking her head. "There was no easy way out. Six years, Jethro. I never stopped-"

He interrupted her. "Then why did you?"

"There was- is more to the situation than you know," she answered.

Jethro sighed, exasperated, and rolled his eyes. "This what you came for, Jen? To bring up Paris? To apologize?"

"I came by to-" Jenny stopped, catching Jethro's gaze, the gaze that made her back down. "I just came by to see if you remembered. And you do," she stated, at his slightly surprised look. "I could always read you. I know you do."

She set her jar down on the worktable, walking in Jethro's direction. He turned towards her and her lips brushed his cheek. "See you tomorrow, Agent Gibbs."

He watched her retreating figure as she made her way up the stairs, and finally exhaled when he heard the front door close. Abandoning the sander, he reached for his bourbon and swallowed the remainder of that was in the jar.

Damn her for always being able to read him.

Damn her for always getting to him.

Damn her for having his heart for the past six years.

Damn him for thinking it was over.


End file.
